1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing polished cereal such as polished rice to obtain no-bran cereal such as no-bran rice which requires no washing before cooking.
2. Description of Related Art
Processed polished rice, i.e., no-bran rice which requires no wash before cooking is going to be brought into the market. The no-bran rice is obtained by removing bran including an aleurone layer which remains in grooves or concaves on grain surfaces of polished rice after subjected to polishing by a polishing machine. As a method of manufacturing the no-bran rice, there are known a method in which the polished rice as material is subjected to polishing in water for a minute time and then dehydrated to be dried, a method in which the polished rice is polished by a grinding brush to remove the remaining bran, and a xe2x80x9cgranular material mixing/stirringxe2x80x9d method in which granular material as adhesive agent such as amyloid and grinded grain is mixed and stirred with the polished rice so that the granular material captures the remaining bran.
FIG. 8 shows a polished rice processing apparatus 100 having a polished rice processing section 200 according to the xe2x80x9cgranular material mixing/stirringxe2x80x9d method, as proposed in U.S. Patent Application No. 09/812,778. The polished rice processing section 200 includes a wet processing device 400 for softening the bran remaining on the surfaces of the material polished rice by stirring the material polished rice while adding moisture thereto, a thermal-adhesion material processing device 500 for adding pre-heated granular material to the polished rice so that the granular material captures the softened remaining bran, and a separating/drying device 600 for separating the processed polished rice from the granular material to obtain no-bran rice. The granular material separated by the separating/drying device 600 is collected and reprocessed by a granular material reprocessing section 300 for recycling and fed back to the thermal-adhesion material processing device 500.
The granular material having predetermined granularity smaller than granularity of the material polished rice is used in the polished rice processing apparatus of the granular material mixing/stirring type so as to enable the separation of the processed polished rice from the granular material on the basis of the granularity by the separating/drying section 600 and also to effectively capture the bran remaining on the material polished rice. If the granular material separated by the separating/drying device 600 is directly fed back to the thermal-adhesion material processing device 500, size of the granular material gradually increases by the bran captured on the surface of the granular material, to make the separation of the processed polished rice and the granular material by the separating/drying section 600 incomplete to rise a problem of immixture of the granular material in the processed polished rice.
Therefore, so as to recycle the granular material, it has been required to provide the granular material recycling section 300 as follows. The granular material recycling section 300 comprises a sifting device 700 for shifting the granular material separated by the separating/drying device 600 into a plurality of granularities, an abrading device 800 for abrading the bran from the surfaces of the granular material by passing a pair of rollers rotating in opposite directions, a drying device 900 for heating and drying the granular material with the bran removed from the surfaces of the granular material by the abrading device 800 and the sifting device 700, and a conveying device 910 for feeding back the processed granular material to the thermal-adhesion material processing device 500. The granular material after processed by the granular material recycling section 300 having regulated granularity is securely separated from the processed polished rice by the separating/drying device 600 of the polished rice processing section 200.
However, since the granular material recycling section 300 comprises the sifting device 700, the abrading device 800, the drying device 900 and the conveying device 910 to be separately installed, the size of the polished rice processing apparatus 100 has to be large.
An object of the present invention is to reduce a size of the granular material regeneration section to thereby make a whole size of the polished rice processing apparatus small.
The polished cereal processing apparatus of the present invention comprises: a polished cereal processing section for removing bran remaining on surfaces of polished cereal by mixing granular material with the polished cereal so that the remaining bran is captured by the granular material, and separating the polished cereal with bran removed and the granular material with bran captured; and a granular material reprocessing section for reprocessing the granular material with bran captured and feeding back the reprocessed granular material to the polished cereal processing section for recycling the granular material. The granular material reprocessing section includes a screen tube for separating the granular material within a predetermined granularity range and a removing roller arranged to rotate in the screen tube for removing the bran captured on surfaces of the granular material fed into the screen tube.
With the above arrangement, the bran captured on surfaces of the granular material is effectively removed by the rotation of the removing roller and the granular material with bran removed to have granularity within a predetermined range is separated by the screen tube and fed back to the polished cereal processing section for recycling the granular material. Since it is unnecessary to provide the abrading device and the sifting device in the prior art in the granular material reprocessing section, the granular material reprocessing section is made small.
The cereal may be rice, wheat, barley corn, etc. As the granular material, edible granular material obtained by processing starch, such as cassava, to be pre-gelatinized and dried to form into small balls having predetermined uniform granularity such as pearl tapioca, and also grinded cereal such as grinded rice can be preferably used.
The polished cereal processing section may comprise: a wet processing device for stirring the polished cereal while adding moisture thereto so as to soften the bran remaining on surfaces of the polished cereal; a thermal-adhesion material processing device for mixing and stirring the polished cereal processed by said wet processing device with preheated granular material so as to remove the softened bran on the surfaces of the polished cereal to be captured by the granular material; and a separating/drying device for drying the surfaces of the polished cereal processed by said thermal-adhesion material processing device and separating the polished cereal from the granular material. In the case of adopting the polished cereal processing section of above arrangement, the granular material reprocessed by the granular material reprocessing section is fed back to the thermal-adhesion material processing device.
By adopting the above arrangement of the polished cereal processing section, the softened bran remaining on the surfaces of the polished cereal is gelatinized immediately after touching with the preheated granular material (thermal-adhesion material) mixed and stirred with the polished cereal in the thermal-adhesion material processing device and is adhered to be captured by the granular material and removed from the surface of the polished rice with the aid of transfer of the moisture of the bran to the granular material. Then, the polished cereal with the bran removed and the granular material with bran removed are dried and separated by the separating/drying device.
The granular material reprocessing section may comprise: a granular material regulating device for regulating the granularity of the granular material by removing the bran captured on the surfaces of the granular material; a drying device for drying the granular material regulated by the granular material regulating device, and a conveying device for conveying the regulated granular material to the polished cereal processing section.
The bran captured on the surfaces of the granular material is removed by the removing roller and the removed bran and the granular material with bran removed are screened by the screen tube in the granular material regulating device. The screened granular material is dried by the drying device and conveyed to the polished cereal processing section. The granular material conveyed to the polished cereal processing section is suitable for reuse since it has regulated granularity and has heated by hot air supplied in the drying device.
The granular material regulating device may comprise: an inlet for supplying the granular material into the screen tube; an outlet for discharging granular material which has not passes through meshes of the screen tube; and a rotary shaft arranged in the screen tube for supporting the removing roller at an upstream side near the inlet and a discharge screw for feeding granular material remaining in said screen tube towards said outlet at a downstream side near the outlet. The meshes of the screen tube have a first mesh size to prevent the granular material of a predetermined granularity from passing through in a first region around the removing roller and a second mesh size to allow the granular material of the predetermined granularity to pass through in a second region around the discharge screw.
The bran removed from the granular material by the rotation of the removing roller passes through the meshes in the first region having a first mesh size to be separated, and the granular material with bran removed to have the granularity within the predetermined range passed through the meshes in the second region having the second mesh size to be separated.
The granular material regulating device may further comprise a feed screw fixed on the rotary shaft in the vicinity of the inlet to feed the granular material into the screen tube. In this case, the first region of meshes of said screen tube may extend to cover at least a part of the feed screw, so as to discharge fine grinded particles, etc. mixed in the granular material through meshes of the screen tube before the granular material reaches the removing roller.
The granular material discharged from the outlet may be fed back to the inlet so that the granular material with bran insufficiently removed is subjected to the removing action of the removing roller again to improve yield of reprocessing of the granular material.
The removing roller may comprise a stirring roll having protrusions on an outer circumference thereof for stirring the granular material in the screen tube. In this case, it is preferable that the screen tube has a polygonal cross section to improve effectiveness of removal action of the bran by the stirring roll.
Alternatively, the removing roller may comprise an abrading roll for abrading the granular material in the screen tube. In this case, it is preferable that the screen tube has a circular cross section.
The drying device may comprise a hot air generator and a blowing fan for supplying hot air blow, and the conveying device may comprise a conveying pipe communicating with the drying device and the polished cereal processing section for conveying the granular material regulated by the granular material regulating device to the polished cereal processing section by the hot air blow supplied from the drying device. With this stricture, the regulated granular material is dried and heated by the hot air blow supplied from blowing fan while being conveyed in the conveying pipe by the hot air blow.